The below theory does make sense because North Korea can get the technical data it needs from this test to advance their nuclear program and then use a nuclear freeze as bargaining chip to get free goodies from the incoming left leaning ROK government.  Then at a time of their choosing North Korea can break the agreement again, blame the US and the ROK for some made up reason and continue testing.  We have seen this before and it looks like whoever the incoming ROK government is wants to play this game again with the North.  However, the real wild card is does President Trump want to play this game?:

An expert said Monday that North Korea may carry out an upgraded nuclear test before a key anniversary in late April to have an upper hand in relations with the next South Korea government.

The possible test is also likely to be the last before Pyongyang sophisticates its nuclear capability, according to Cheong Seong-chang, a senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute.

“The possibility of North Korea pushing ahead with a nuclear test before the (85th) anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army on April 25 cannot be ruled out,” Cheong said in a forum in Seoul.

“It is assumed that North Korea would finish sophisticating its nuclear capabilities through the last nuclear test ahead of the launch of a new administration in the South before seeking to mend the fence with the new administration using a nuclear test freeze as a negotiating card,” he noted.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

All the Internet has been talking about is the man that was physically pulled off of a United Airlines flight in Chicago.  It has been revealed the man’ name is David Dao and he is an internal medicine doctor in Kentucky:

The passenger who was dragged from an United Airlines flight is 69-year-old grandfather Dr David Dao.

Footage of the Vietnamese-American being hauled off the overbooked flight at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Sunday caused outrage on Monday.

Dr Dao was heard in videos captured of his shocking eviction saying he needed to get home to Louisville so he could see patients.

DailyMail.com can reveal Dr Dao is a father of five and a grandfather, who specializes in internal medicine. Four of his five children are doctors.  [Daily Mail]

You can read more at the link, but if you haven’t seen the video yet here it is:

It seems a lot of people are directing their anger towards United Airlines for overbooking the flight without understanding that overbooking is standard policy in the airline industry.  It has only happened to me once many years ago when flying American Airlines.  It happened in the terminal and not on the plane which I can understand would make Mr. Dao more upset.  However, I have seen overbooked flights have people removed while sitting in the plane as well and never have I seen anyone resist getting off the plane.

As upset as I am sure Mr. Dao was, he should not have become non-compliant with the United staff.  Regardless Mr. Dao should have never been beaten by the Aviation Security Officers either.  The guy that slammed Mr. Dao face into the arm rest to get him removed from the plane should find another line of work.  However, before resorting to police to remove a non-compliant passenger the airline should have increased the compensation to get someone to volunteer.  I would be surprised if the airline offered $2,000 and a hotel stay that someone would not have volunteered to get off of the flight.  It seems that would be better business than the PR nightmare United is facing today.

This is why I fly Korean Air or Asiana Airlines when flying to and from Korea.  I cannot imagine Korean Air or Asiana resorting to force to remove an overbooked passenger.  However, with a domestic US airline something like this does not surprise me at all.

You would think this guy would find a more secure location to hide this much money.  He is lucky the students who found the money did not just walk away with it.  Considering he is now under arrest maybe it would have been better for him:

An envelope containing a bundle of bills amounting to 200 million won ($177,000) was found in a student locker at Sungkyunkwan University campus in Suwon, Gyeonggi.

The owner happens to be a professor of Sungkyunkwan University and husband to attorney, Choi Yu-jeong, who was arrested last year for her involvement in corruption.

The life science student association at the Sungkyunkwan University Natural Sciences campus in Suwon was undergoing spring cleaning on March 7 when they discovered a locked locker. Unable to identify the owner, they forced open the locker.

Inside they found a yellow envelope containing 1,800 50,000 won bills and 1,000 100 dollar bills. The student association immediately notified the school and reported this to the police.

The Suwon police poured through footage from the CCTV cameras on campus. However, as there were no CCTV cameras covering the lockers, the investigation did not progress. The students said the locker had been locked since August.

Fortunately, police were able to spot a man, later identified as a Sungkyunkwan University professor, moving towards the student lockers with a bag on Feb. 16.

The Sungkyunkwan University professor returned to the scene on March 8 to verify whether the money was still safely stashed there. Since there are no faculty offices in the vicinity of the student locker room and the area is generally not visited by professors, this piqued the interest of investigators.

Unluckily for the academic, that day happened to be a day after the student association’s report to the police.

The police found he was the husband of Choi and subsequently searched his office on Tuesday while requesting his presence at the police department. “At the request of my wife, I deposited [the money] at the locker,” he confessed.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

As legions of ex-Obama officials endorse the strike, it's more and more clear the degree to which Obama was resisting his own advisors

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) April 7, 2017

Marathoners run on a street in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang on April 9, 2017, held to mark the April 15 birth anniversary of the country’s late founder Kim Il-sung, in this photo provided by the Korean Central News Agency. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

I have no doubt that President Trump will consult with the ROK government before any preemptive strike on North Korea, the real question is how long before any strike will he consult and what influence will the ROK have on the decision?:

The U.S. Donald Trump administration must have prior consultation with Seoul before taking any confrontational actions concerning North Korea, including launching a preemptive strike, South Korean politicians said.

The politicians, including presidential candidate Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), said Seoul is directly involved in the North Korean issue, noting that any actions taken by Washington will have a direct impact on the Korean Peninsula.  (…….)

“South Korea should be the owner of North Korean issues and take the lead in dealing with them rather than letting neighboring countries such as the U.S. and China manage them,” Moon told reporters, Saturday, referring to the outcome of the summit talks between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“The U.S. is talking about various possibilities regarding its confrontational actions on the North. The U.S. must consult with South Korea before whatever measure it takes,” he said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Here is some more signaling from the Trump administration to North Korea that the US is ready to react in response to any near term provocation:

U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said Sunday that President Donald Trump has ordered him to prepare “a full range of options” to the nuclear and missile threats North Korea poses to the U.S. and its allies.

McMaster also said on “Fox News Sunday” that it was a “prudent” decision to send the San Diego-based USS Carl Vinson strike group toward the Korean Peninsula, a move designed to warn Pyongyang against additional provocations.

“North Korea has been engaged in a pattern of provocative behavior. This is a rogue regime that is now a nuclear capable regime, and (Chinese) President Xi (Jinping) and President Trump agreed that that is unacceptable, that what must happen is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” McMaster said.

“And so, the president has asked us to be prepared to give him a full range of options to remove that threat to the American people and to our allies and partners in the region,” he said.  [Yonhap]

It will be interesting to see what North Korea does?

It seems for them strategically it would makes sense to wait a few months let the current tensions to blow over and have US attention focused else where before committing another provocation.  Right now they have the focus of the Trump administration focused on them very closely which may mean a forceful response to any provocation they commit.

The Ghost in the Shell movie that has come under criticism for “whitewashing” sounds like a pretty crappy movie, but this is what some Japanese actresses had to say after watching it:

Yoshihara: People in Japan worship white people.

Kato-Kiriyama: Even in the story, there are Japanese people involved in creating these beings and they also may very well see the ideal human being as a white woman. So you’re sort of messed up all the way around.

Agena: Yes! I felt more messed up watching this movie. It reinforced my own personal messed-up standards of physical beauty.

Okatsuka: This is an important conversation to have.

Yoshihara: Even my ex-boyfriend, who is Asian-American, said, “What Asian lady has a body like Scarlett Johansson?”

Agena: There are certain priorities there.

Okatsuka: It’s this weird thing where Asian-Americans or Asian nationals living here like me, working in film, are fighting both our motherland and white producers here. We’re walking this in-between where I scream at Hollywood but I’m also like, “Why’d you do that, Japan?!” Et tu, Brute, on both sides.

Yoshihara: Japanese people are self-loathing.

Okatsuka: Is it crazy that suicide rates are so high in Japan?

Yoshihara: Even my sister committed suicide. That’s how many people commit suicide in Japan. That’s how messed up it is.  [Hollywood Reporter]

You can read much more at the link.

According to the article Ahn Cheol-soo is attracting conservative voters who have no other viable candidate to vote for in the upcoming ROK presidential election:

Presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo of the People’s Party has knocked frontrunner Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) off the top spot in several poll results released Sunday, a month before the May 9 election.

Moon, who had been leading the polls for months, slipped back to 32.7 percent as Ahn gained 36.8 percent in a poll conducted by Korea Research Center.

In the hypothetical two-way competition, Ahn beat Moon by over 10 percentage points, with 49.4 percent to Moon’s 36.2 percent.

Ahn was also neck and neck with Moon in other polls.

Another poll conducted by Hankook Research on the commission of Hankook Ilbo, the sister paper of The Korea Times, showed Moon gained 37.7 percent, and Ahn was on his heels, having 37 percent.  [Korea Times]

You can read much more at the link, but to woo conservative voters Ahn has supported the THAAD deployment and maintaining tough sanctions on North Korea:

The more centrist Ahn Cheol-soo this week won the People’s Party nomination. He is currently second in the Realmeter poll at 34 percent, but he has been slowly closing the gap in recent weeks with Moon. The South Korean software mogul pulled out of the 2012 presidential election to support Moon, but this time he vows to stay in and expects to win.

On national security Ahn takes a somewhat tougher stance than Moon, supporting THAAD and international sanctions imposed on North Korea for breaching United Nations Security Council resolutions banning its nuclear program. But Ahn says he too would press for inter-Korean talks at some point.

“What is the purpose of putting in sanctions against North Korea? Because we would like to persuade them to come to the negotiating table at the time we want and under the conditions that we want,” said Ahn.  [VOA News]

I guess the real question is if the conservative voters in a close election will be as motivated to turn out and vote for Ahn as Moon Jae-in’s voters will for him?

It is pretty clear that the Trump administration is sending another signal to North Korea that if they try something here in the short term the US is ready to respond:

A U.S. Navy strike group will be moving toward the western Pacific Ocean near the Korean peninsula as a show of force, a U.S. official told Reuters on Saturday, as concerns grow about North Korea’s advancing weapons program.

Earlier this month North Korea tested a liquid-fueled Scud missile which only traveled a fraction of its range.

The strike group, called Carl Vinson, includes an aircraft carrier and will make its way from Singapore toward the Korean peninsula, according to the official, who was not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link.